shows – KSPC 88.7FMhttp://kspc.org
The Space between your ears since 1956!Wed, 09 Nov 2016 00:33:10 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1KSPC shares some of our favorite interviews with musicians, artists, activists and friends from our 60+ year history.shows – KSPC 88.7FMcleanshows – KSPC 88.7FMpodcasts@kspc.orgpodcasts@kspc.org (shows – KSPC 88.7FM)KSPC88.7fm Podcasts - Pomona College - Claremont, CAshows – KSPC 88.7FMhttp://kspc.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/podcastlogo.pnghttp://kspc.org/category/shows/
Beach Goth 2016 Previewhttp://kspc.org/beach-goth-2016-preview/
http://kspc.org/beach-goth-2016-preview/#respondSat, 22 Oct 2016 03:47:53 +0000http://kspc.org/?p=5808Beach Goth 2016 is this weekend – 10/22 & 10/23! The Observatory has been one of my favorite venues in Southern California, booking tons of talent over the past few years. The Growlers made sure that Beach Goth 2016 is no exception, bringing in two days jam-packed with exceptional artists. Two of KSPC’s own are giddy in anticipation of the festival and wanted to tell you listeners who they’re looking out for at the festival!

Ryder:

Another year of Beach Goth is upon us. Numerous eclectic music acts are included in the lineup—genres span from indie to pop to rap. Headlining artists include The Growlers, Bon Iver and Justice. Other notable acts are James Blake, King Krule, Gucci Mane, and Violent Femmes—what an exciting lineup! Bon Iver has recently released his newest album, 22, A Million, which has received raving reviews. New material is always fun to see live, and of course, the classic “Skinny Love” should be a crowd favorite. Another band I’m excited to see play is the creators of Beach Goth themselves, The Growlers. With their Julian Casablancas-produced newest album, City Club, which includes songs like “City Club,” “I’ll Be Around,” and “Night Ride,” their set will definitely not be one to miss. Speaking of Julian Casablancas, Albert Hammond Jr., aka the guitarist for the iconic rock band The Strokes, will also be playing a set on Saturday of his solo work. I can’t help but wonder if Casablancas himself will show up at some point during Beach Goth since those with whom he works so closely are playing.

As for some older bands, TLC and Violent Femmes will both be playing, TLC famous in the 90s and Violent Femmes in the 80s. With songs such as “No Scrubs,” and “Waterfalls,” TLC’s set should be a fun throwback. Violent Femmes, the indie band from Wisconsin, is also hopefully going to be an enthralling act. One small band that I’m excited to see again is BRONCHO—I saw these guys in a small downtown LA venue and they were amazing. They recently put out a new album called Double Vanity with several exceptional songs like “Fantasy Boys,” “Senora Borealis,” and “Jenny Loves Jenae.” Additionally, their last album, Just Enough Hip to be Woman, includes songs like “Taj Mahal,” and “NC-17,” and all are fun to watch live. I’m also just thrilled to go find more new music and smaller bands that have yet to be discovered. Beach Goth 2016, here we come!

Luke:

There are so many artists I can’t wait to see this weekend (10/22 & 10/23), but I tried to pick a few I’m extra excited for.

Saturday

DJ Quik – A Compton legend, this rapper and producer is still going strong after 25 years. I’m from the East Coast, but it’s always great to hear some LA classics bang out and have the crowd go wild. Expect to hear some hits and maybe some tracks from his April release Rosecrans.

Sunday

The Pharcyde – These LA legends are still active performers. They haven’t released much aside from remixes and a few singles as of late, so I’m anticipating hearing the classics. It’s hard to turn down a chance to hear “Passing Me By” and “Runnin’” live.

XXYYXX – This Florida based producer is a KSPC favorite. His slowed and chopped sampling creates a wonderful sliding rhythm and spaced out vibe brought together with heavy bass. In recent years he’s been primarily releasing singles and remixes. He also produced a track on Torey Lanez’s latest release. I’m holding out hope we get some tracks from his 2012 self-titled album.

Gucci Mane – Guwop is fresh out and already has two albums out, his latest being the days old Woptober. Gucci has been a preeminent force in rap for 15 years and his influence is heard throughout KSPC’s hip-hop library. Some verses he has done are scattered in the library. I’m unbelievably excited, Gucci is one of my favorite rappers, but also curious as to what he’ll play. I’m assuming plenty of the hits along with a few notable tracks from his latest projects.

Grimes – This Canadian artist is extraordinarily popular with the good folks here at 88.7 FM. I’ve fell in love with her experimentation. Her 2015 release Art Angels is ambitious and brilliant. I don’t know what exactly to expect, but I’m hoping we get a mix of tracks from throughout her career in a bizarre blend only a few artists could actually achieve.

By Luke Sawyer & Ryder Heitz

]]>http://kspc.org/beach-goth-2016-preview/feed/0SHOW REVIEW: Crying and The Hotelier at The Echohttp://kspc.org/show-review-crying-and-the-hotelier-at-the-echo/
http://kspc.org/show-review-crying-and-the-hotelier-at-the-echo/#respondFri, 14 Oct 2016 20:03:05 +0000http://kspc.org/?p=5781While DJ Dan isn’t Fist Fighting Gravity from 2-4pm every Tuesday, you can often find him fist fighting his way through crowds at the punk show! Last week, Dan saw Crying and The Hotelier. Read below to find out how the show went!

On Sunday, October 3rd, the Echo was host to the first show of Crying and The Hotelier’s fall tour, to be joined by Joyce Manor in San Francisco the following day. The crowd filed in gradually in the 90 minutes between doors opening and Crying’s set time, taking up a majority of the small venue by the time the three-piece appeared from the green room.

Elaiza Santos of Crying

Throughout their 40-minute-long set, Crying’s musical prowess shone through the few minor hiccups that naturally arose from their first show on a new tour – and with a new drummer joining the lineup for the first time. For a band that stood out on its first studio recordings mostly because of its unique combination of 8-bit production and pop-punk energy, Crying sounded remarkably different on stage. Consisting solely of drums, guitar, vocals, and an iPod with the pre-produced tracks loaded onto it, the instrumentalists stole the show while the quirky production was more of a background feature. Ryan Galloway’s masterful guitar work, memorable to KSPC after Crying’s performance in Claremont at NoChella 2015, provided a more powerful driving force than most bands can produce with two or three instruments. Mixed in with palm-muted strumming, his quick riffs and sharp pinch harmonics seared through the air, their tone complementing the Gameboy synth surprisingly well. All the while Elaiza Santos’s vocals, somewhat overshadowed due to their low volume, told stories full of references to life in New York City, sometimes goofy, sometimes reflective. Familiar tracks from 2014’s Get Olde / Second Wind were mixed in with some samples from their new release, Beyond the Fleeting Gales, an album whose departure from the dominance of chiptune is more consistent with their live sound.

Christian Holden of The Hotelier

By the end of Crying’s set, the venue had become noticeably more packed and it was clear that the majority of the crowd had come for the headliners. The Hotelier took the stage promptly at 10:00 (punk time be damned!) and were welcoming a new member to their touring lineup as well. Scott Ayotte, who previously contributed to Hotelier studio albums, fit in seamlessly. The set started off fittingly with “An Introduction to the Album,” the opening track off of 2014’s Home, Like NoPlace Is There. Predictable though it may have been, it’s hard to choose a better song to kick off a tour than “Introduction”, which leads with the phrase “open the curtains” and builds from a soft opening to its near-screaming conclusion, along the way taking the audience on a journey through some of that album’s darkest and most abundant themes: self-harm, abuse, and the loss of a friend. For the rest of their set, the band moved through an even mix of songs from Home and from this year’s record Goodness, which despite its moments of pain is focused on love rather than the crushing agony of Home. Unlike in Crying’s opening performance, the individual instrumentalists were showcased much less, with guitars, bass and drums working together in swells. The Hotelier’s emphasis was, depending on the part of a song, either the collective intensity of their sound or the articulate lyrics of singer-bassist Christian Holden. They rolled through a ten-song rollercoaster of a set before an encore of “Goodness, Pt. 2” followed by “Your Deep Rest.” The closing track was an interesting choice, as despite being one of their most popular, it is also perhaps their most devastating, telling the crushing story of a close friend’s suicide. Its live performance was nevertheless a perfect example of the catharsis that is, above all, the sentiment delivered by The Hotelier’s music. It was a powerful and appropriate, if not exactly uplifting, conclusion to an impressive show.

]]>http://kspc.org/show-review-crying-and-the-hotelier-at-the-echo/feed/0INTERVIEW: Death Valley Girlshttp://kspc.org/interview-death-valley-girls/
http://kspc.org/interview-death-valley-girls/#respondMon, 10 Oct 2016 19:01:36 +0000http://kspc.org/?p=5747Iman and Madi interviewed Death Valley Girls about their motivation for making music, mummies, their supernatural creative process, and the upcoming Desert Daze festival! Check it out!

This is Iman and Madi from KSPC! Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us today! First of all, we just want to see that your album has been charting a lot at KSPC which is really cool and a lot of our DJs like to play your music. We were wondering if you know how much support you get from other college stations.

We’ve been getting a lot, which is really crazy, we didn’t even remember that other people are gonna hear it until months after we made it. But we made it to the CMJ charts and everything.

That’s awesome.

Yeah, we’re hoping to get to lucky number 13 but we only made it to 16. I mean we can’t even believe we were on there at all, so that’s pretty good.

Congratulations.

Yeah, beggars can’t be number choosers, ya know? But yeah, I can’t believe anyone even hears it, so that’s rad. Thank you for playing it.

Cover of Death Valle Girls’ new album, Glow in the Dark. Image courtesy of Burger Records.

Yeah for sure! Can you tell us more about your vision for the album and in general what you felt while making this album?

Yeah, well, basically it all began about last year around Halloween-time we played a show at the Natural History Museum for a mummy exhibit. It was called “New Secrets from the Tomb.” We had this idea that, like, these mummies had been in Chicago at a museum since they were found in 1890, we were certain that they never heard rock & roll before, so we thought it was so illustrious that we could be the first to bring rock & roll to the dead and we wanted to write a bunch of songs to introduce rock & roll and potentially wake them up if they wanted to wake up.

That’s really cool! How was it playing within the space of the museum?

Well, that was the one problem was that we were outside. And we were sort of disappointed because the drummer and I had seen a mummy about a month before. That’s how this all started, really, was that we were walking down the street and we saw a mummy, the defecated remains of a person that had been mummified thousands of years ago walking down the street making mummy sounds.Not like a dead person, it wasn’t a zombie, it was the mummified remains of a person walking around my neighborhood. So we contacted the museum to see if they had any mummies and they were like “Yeah, we just got Chicago’s mummy exhibit two weeks ago!” We didn’t want to ask them are any mummies missing but they were so excited that we were interested in mummies at all and the mummy that we saw was a female mummy because it had bosoms so we asked them “Are there any girl mummies?” and they were like “Yeah come down” and someone else said “Why don’t you come play for the mummies?” and that’s how this whole thing started and after that we realized, like, we had made all these songs to introduce rock & roll to the dead, why not introduce rock & roll to the living, you know, so we decided to record Glow in the Dark which is sort of a call to arms for lots of other concepts we’re working on.

So, do you think you succeeded in bringing rock & roll to the mummies?

Yeah, for sure, definitely! At the very least it was very conceptually starting there as our real first full record, you know you can only go up from there. If your goal is to wake the dead, introduce the dead, introduce the living, reawaken the living, only the sky is left to go. It changed the whole concept of what a rock & roll show can and should be.

What do you find was the vision in your previous releases? How has that changed?

Before we were just thinking that it would be cool to make a record that kids would listen to over and over again and learn how to play guitar or bass, just a regular rock & roll record that makes people want to dance or drive real fast or drive real slow or whatever, listen to after a breakup, whatever, but we didn’t realize before how important it could be, how globally and universally important a record should be.

Yeah, like transforming.

Yeah, yeah.

What’s your favorite song off of the new album?

Whoooooa! No one has asked that. Well there’s one song that’s recorded on there that was all first takes and first singing and first everything, actually there’s more than one, but one that I don’t think would ever be able to be recreated as it is on that record is Death Valley Boogie. There’s something special about it, it’s the most magical one where everything just happened right then and there, we had never really played it before and that was really cool. Pink Radiation, too, we had never played it before, most of the songs we had not played before, it’s hard to say! I don’t know, thanks for asking!

Yeah of course!

I’ll think about it later.

It’s a tough one. We were also wondering how the name Death Valley Girls came about and if you guys had a special connection or influence to the national park.

Well, we’re learning way more about national parks now than we ever knew was possible but Larry made it up, I think it came to him in a dream. Like a horror movie thing, sort of a Manson-utopian sort of theme that we are into.

I like the name a lot, it’s really cool.

Thank you!

It seems like there’s a lot of horror movie imagery, like how the name came, zombies and mummies, do you have a favorite horror movie or have horror movies influenced your work in other ways?

Oh boy, yeah. I think that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is probably our favorite movie but there are so many. I don’t see the difference between horror movies and rock & roll and gritty culture, you know, it’s all related.

What is your creative process like amongst you and the other members?

Oh, well, we don’t really believe that we write songs…it all just exists in outer space and when you’re lucky you can pull a song down but I mean mainly if it’s like a melody or riff it’ll come and it’ll be attached to one sentence and I won’t write the words until like an hour before we have to record it and then all of the words just fly onto the page. It has really little, I mean, as far as I’m aware, it has nothing to do with us but it’s that when we’re all together it just kind of happens.

That sounds special.

I wish we had a better process! You know what I mean? A less supernatural one.

I mean, clearly it works though!

Yeah! I just wish I was one of those prolific people that could just sit and write a bunch of stuff from my own personal head instead of having to wait for, you know, the magic of the universe to align and send us songs, you know? I mean, again, beggars can’t be choosers. We’re begging for it.

Lineup for Desert Daze! Death Valley Girls play on Friday. Image courtesy of their instagram.

How you feel about performing at a festival like Desert Daze at Joshua Tree and how does that compare to playing smaller, more intimate shows?

Well I really love the place that it’s at, the Institute of Mentalphysics. I’ve been there before and there’s like vortexes. That place is super super cool. And obviously we’re super excited to see like so many bands, not the least of which is The Sonics, Television, Meatbodies, and then all of our friends. Like so many of our friends that are in such rad bands are playing. But yeah, festivals can be super fun it just depends how they’re run and we’ve never done Desert Daze before but I’ve only ever heard amazing things.

Yeah, awesome! It sounds like a great time.

Yeah, almost every festival we’ve played in the desert is cool because people are going there to enjoy themselves and be, you know, in love, and get turned on. It seems like a good place for it. I don’t want to say where we’ve been to festivals that stink but there are places where people are trying to be annoying.

Alright, so thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us! We’re going to wrap it up with one last question. What is a question that you wish an interviewer would ask you, and what would the answer be?

Oh man, oh man. Uh, whoa that’s such a good question! That question! Let me use my brain for a second. I have to go to the inner depths of my brain. Let me ask Larry. Larry, what’s one question you want interviewers to ask but they never do?

Larry: Maybe this question! I don’t know.

Bonnie: We’re finally speechless!

Larry: In interviews, there’s a lot of the same questions, and you always think “Wow, I wish they’d ask something different!” But when they ask something like this it’s like, “wow, I don’t know”

Bonnie: I know what it is! I know what question!

What is it?

“We heard that Iggy and Alice Cooper and Ozzy think you’re so cool. Tell me, how do you feel about that?”

That’s awesome.

That’s all I have to say about that.

If you can’t catch Death Valley Girls at Desert Daze, make sure to check out their new album Glow in the Dark by listening to KSPC or streaming from Soundcloud!

]]>http://kspc.org/interview-death-valley-girls/feed/0ART AFTER HOURS – Fall 2016 Kickoff with KSPChttp://kspc.org/art-after-hours-fall-2016-kickoff-with-kspc/
http://kspc.org/art-after-hours-fall-2016-kickoff-with-kspc/#respondTue, 30 Aug 2016 23:45:23 +0000http://kspc.org/?p=5648This Thursday is an extremely special and powerful for many reasons. September 1st, KSPC and Pomona College of Art will be kicking off the fall 2016 Art After Hours series.

Art After Hours offers a variety of programming including live music concerts sponsored by KSPC 88.7 fm, lectures, panels, workshops, tours, film screenings, and performances in conjunction with Museum exhibitions and in partnership with student and academic groups across the campuses. Art After Hours expands access to the Museum as a dynamic venue that presents art as an integral part of campus life.

This week we will be welcoming two mighty female electronic artists! Linafornia is from Los Angeles and recently released her album “Yung” in January 2016. “Sounding like a blend of Madlib vintage soul claps and Organized Noize inspired bottom swing, Yung was two years in the making before wrapping up near the end of 2015. Released this year in January, LA Weekly contributor Jeff Weiss said, “During a time when the parameters of the beat scene are looser than ever, Linafornia delivered its best rookie album.”

Lealani is a 17-year-old producer from Pomona. She just recently performed at the Beat Invitational at The Low End Theory Festival in February 2016. She also joined us last year for an Art After Hours event when she performed as her band The Pezheads. Madeline Helland reviewed The Pezheads performance and shared “Her songs were sensational and they sounded even better live than the recordings we had all been playing. I call myself a fan of almost every performer at Art After Hours, but Lealani Teano won my heart for the evening. All the music lovers here at KSPC can’t wait to hear more from her.”

Don’t miss this! Please come on out to Art After Hours in the courtyard behind Thatcher Music Building! Music starts at 9pm (ish)! It’s totally free! You HAVE to hear Linafornia and Lealani’s beats. It will be life changing. Invite EVERYONE!

]]>http://kspc.org/art-after-hours-fall-2016-kickoff-with-kspc/feed/0Special Latin Jazz Show 8/6/16http://kspc.org/special-latin-jazz-show-8616/
http://kspc.org/special-latin-jazz-show-8616/#respondWed, 03 Aug 2016 21:11:09 +0000http://kspc.org/?p=5567Larry the Fox is playing his favorite Latin Jazz hits in a special Latin Jazz show this Saturday 8/6/16 at 3pm. Tune in to hear some funky rhythms!
]]>http://kspc.org/special-latin-jazz-show-8616/feed/0Concert Review – CRSSD Festival 2016http://kspc.org/concert-review-crssd-festival-2016/
http://kspc.org/concert-review-crssd-festival-2016/#respondFri, 22 Apr 2016 23:48:04 +0000http://kspc.org/?p=5243DJ Ziv and fellow KSPC volunteer Zach had the opportunity to attend CRSSD Music Festival in San Diego. Read on to experience the festival through their eyes. DJ Ziv’s show Phantasmagoric Combinatronics is on Wednesdays 4-6pm, only at KSPC.

On March 5 and 6, many of the greatest names in the current electronic scene joined forces at CRSSD Music Festival in San Diego. KSPC was kind enough to provide me and fellow electro-head Zach Miller the opportunity to do some field research.

The famous long-but-not-too-long drive from Claremont was smooth and filled with music to grease our ears in preparation for the weekend. Zach did an excellent job cleaning the windows on our steed the Prius, as is shown in Figure 1. We arrived at our crash pad of the evening, the college dorm of one Markus Yee, a math prodigy doing great work at UCSD. Seeing the vital, scholastic hub that is UCSD was a nice precursor for things to come, as it acclimated Zach and I to the culture and mindset of the world’s largest beach town. After a quick deposit of our gear at Markus’s waterfront dorm, we set off on our Uber towards the magic.

The scene is to be expected at any large 21+ EDM festival in Southern California. Rave costumes, frat boys, bohemians, old school drum ‘n bass folks, tax attorneys, grandmas and valley girls. Everyone had a $10 beer in their left hand and selfie-stick in their right. The venue embedded around the photogenic San Diego Country Administration Building, built in classic Mission revival design.

Seeing Ryan Hemsworth melt faces as a sun sets over the waterfront was quite a sensual experience. Sounds and colors and people fade into a euphonic kaleidoscope. After the set, we ate the deliciously overpriced concert dinner and watched Tiga from afar with his eclectic Garage house and percussive rhythms. We were preparing our dancing muscles and minds for the headliner of the night: Odesza. When they come screaming on at 9:30, the entire festival went nuts. Having spearheaded the Indietronica movement in the pacific northwest that has trinkled south and become the one of the defining sounds of a modern Southern California, this show felt very natural and organic. Everyone knew the music and knew the vibe. After the show, we followed the mindless wave of people flowing out of the venue, going wherever. Everyone was so relaxed and in such a good mood after the show that it didn’t even seem to matter. After exploring a couple of the famous bars and clubs in the Gaslamp district, we piled in our Lyft back to the same cocoon of UCSD.

Sunday morning involved a relaxing tour of the one and only Geisel library, named after Doctor Seuss. The building inherits both the playfulness and the aesthetic exoticism of its namesake.

After that, we gorged ourselves on glorious Korean BBQ. Tongue and steak and chicken and prime rib, all dripping with flavor and culture. Feeling sufficiently gorged, we drove to the venue and strolled on the boardwalk, admiring the weird ecosystem that the San Diego bay forms. We finally rode into the venue around 4, just in time to hear the sweet serenade of Hi-Lo as we dipped on feet in the fountain. Tycho was next, a brilliant new artist situated between chillwave and electrogaze. His sounds were technically interesting, relaxing and consistent with the acoustic vibes of the day, especially his guitar playing. If you want a pictorial representation of the festival as a whole, all you have to do is look at the album art of Tycho’s Dive. Gorgon City was next, with their poppy hooks and deep protozoan bass lines. They have a new take on UK garage that integrates the melodies of chillwave and I would highly recommend them to anyone who hasn’t heard them yet. Then of course Chet Faker closed everything out with an audacious show only he could pull off. A happy mix of old and new tunes, the show reminded me why Chet Faker is so big right now. He was the ribbon that tied the package of the weekend: the last puzzle piece of a Southern California musical aesthetic that has been in the works for 4 years.

A long-but-not-too-long drive after was good for decompression and reflection on the eclectic tunes of the weekend. It was fun to see SoCal roll up and present itself as one of the hottest electro regions in the west. Stay tuned next year, as I imagine CRSSD just growing and evolving into something even more magnificent.

]]>http://kspc.org/concert-review-crssd-festival-2016/feed/0Concert Review- Porches and Alex Ghttp://kspc.org/concert-review-porches-and-alex-g/
http://kspc.org/concert-review-porches-and-alex-g/#respondSun, 17 Apr 2016 22:12:31 +0000http://kspc.org/?p=5218Superstar KSPC volunteer Samantha went to see college radio faves Porches and Alex G at their March 29th performance at The Echoplex! Here is her extensive review of the show for any of us who might have missed it.

It’s a Tuesday school night, but the show at the Echoplex is too good to pass up. Alex G and Porches tour together, selling out their show which was originally supposed to be at the Echoplex’s smaller sibling venue, the Echo.

Your Friend, a moniker for Kansas native, Taryn Miller, opened up for Alex G and Porches early in the night. With the end of Your Friend’s set and the arrival of Porches, the floor around the stage became full as many people were excited to see what they had come for. While Porches brought the crowds, there was a surprising lack of dancing in the crowd.

Aaron Maine, with his bleached blonde hair and baseball cap, brought the energy and added entertainment to the set with his commentary between songs. In an attempt to lighten the crowd or just have fun himself, he began reciting words and speaking his thoughts aloud. Although much of it didn’t make sense and sounded more like enigmatic poetry, it matched the psychedelic theme of the band’s music, dancing, and visual effects.

Most of Porches’ set consisted of the very danceable songs of their latest album, Pool. Crowd favorites from the album included Underwater, Pool, Mood, and Be Apart. In addition, when Porches played Headsgiving from their Slow Dance in the Cosmos album, the aura of the venue changed with the different mood of the song. While taking a break from watching Porches I wandered over to talk to Alex G, who was helping out at the merch table. While Alex G was spacey and interesting to interact with, Porches’ Headsgiving pulled me back into the crowd for some dancing and listening to the song’s emotional lyrics.

Next, Alex G takes the stage playing favorites from Beach Music (although my personal favorite, In Love, was not played) like Kicker and Bug. While most of Beach Music was played, Mary and Change from the album Trick seemed to be old favorites of the crowd with lots of singing along and dancing to these songs. Interestingly, Alex G made the choice to play Intro from Beach Music, which was an entertaining and chaotic instrumental to watch live. With his rendition of Intro he also incorporated some yells into songs, which changed the calm, lo-fi pop mood.

Alex G officially ends their regular set with a beautiful and melodious rendition of Brite Boy, with the help of female member of Porches, Maya Laner. There is a cute end to the show with some group dancing and a bow from the band.

After most of the band has left the stage, a few “one more songs” from the crowd bring back Alex G and his guitarist back to the stage in which they intimately perform one last song that Alex G ends with a surprising yell of the very last lyric. The combined antics of Alex G and Porches and the live renditions of their latest albums’ songs made the sold out show worth sacrificing valuable homework time on a Tuesday night.

]]>http://kspc.org/concert-review-porches-and-alex-g/feed/0Concert Review – Women F*** S*** Up Festhttp://kspc.org/concert-review-women-fuck-shit-up-fest/
http://kspc.org/concert-review-women-fuck-shit-up-fest/#respondThu, 24 Mar 2016 23:53:45 +0000http://kspc.org/?p=5086While DJ Grace isn’t playing rad tunes on her show Carpool Lane (Wednesdays 2-4pm), she is exploring the greater LA music scene. In this blog post, DJ Grace tells us about her experience at Women F*** S*** Up Fest, a festival in LA celebrating women musicians and artists.

In late February, I had the pleasure of attending the first day of Women F*** S*** Up Fest, a two day festival at the Smell in Los Angeles. The Smell, a DIY art space in LA, was the perfect setting for a festival like this one.

The set list for the night!

At the 2016 Women F*** S*** Up Fest, 12 female-fronted bands f***ed s*** up in their own unique ways. The Storeetellers rockabilly punk sound provided some prime dance tunes. Each band member rotated who sang lead, who was drumming, and who played guitar with each song which was truly impressive. Batwings Catwings brought the fest some awesome electro-punk audience interaction, lots of jumping that verged on moshing. The atmosphere briefly switched to more serious when Ilana Regalado recited her spoken word, calling out themes such as the objectification of female bodies. Ramonda Hammer was the queen of grunge, and brought down the house with lyrics like, “F*** Donald Trump” in their hit Goddamn idiot.

Batwings Catwings blowing everyone away!

Headlining the first day of the Fest was Allison Weiss and her band. Her indie-pop/ feel-good music rounded out the concert, pumping the crowd up for one last set. It was a near constant dance party right to the end, everyone singing and dancing along to every song. Allison Weiss was the perfect artist to end the night!

Top to Bottom: Allison Weiss, Storeetellers, Ramonda Hammer

Apart from the badass performances, what made this fest rock was the venue. The small crowd at Smell assured plenty of dance space, and as there were two stages the music was constant. And, it was all for a great cause! All the profits raised from WFSU Fest were given to the Girls Rock Camp Alliance, an organization that empowers young women through music education and rock music.

Yes, there are many questions with which last week’s Xiu Xiu show at The Echo left us. None of which, however, pertain to Xiu Xiu themselves. Xiu Xiu make sense. Or they make themselves make sense. Or they straight up reconfigure what sense is. Whatever, whichever. All I know: they pounded through most of their 2014 album Angel Guts: Red Classroom from a pulsing red cube, closed with “I Luv the Valley OH!”, and it was the rightest thing that ever happened.

Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo showed no interest in building toward a climax or even moving smoothly between songs. (Each song was punctuated by thirty or so seconds of silence as Jamie Stewart pushed buttons on a box that clanged and screeched, making sounds that never seemed to appear in any actual songs.) Regardless, each song, in its isolation, was breathtaking—and sometimes suffocating—and Stewart’s contorted choreography—gasps, twirls, mincing hops, and mimed suicides—drove home what we already felt about Xiu Xiu, but were perhaps too disturbed to admit: that they make body music, in every way. It is music for the body and against the body. It is music to make you dance and music to make you cringe, shrivel, and wither.

Oh, and Jamie Stewart is playing “Ian Curtis Wishlist” live this year to which I bleat out, “I LOVE YOU, JAMIE STEWART!”